WhatsApp testing Google Search Image feature within the app

Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp might soon be bringing a much prominent feature to tackle against fake news, which will surely be useful in India. Users can reverse search an image sent or received within the WhatsApp app and can identify the legitimacy of it in the upcoming future updates of the messaging platform.

According to WABetaInfo, this new feature has come up in addition to other minor features in the latest Android WhatsApp beta update – version number 2.19.73. The report suggests that this new feature named ‘Search by image’ isn’t available yet but would soon be coming in the future updates after certain refinements. Further, WhatsApp appears to be developing this new feature within the WhatsApp chats regardless of the private chats or Group Chats.

In theory, whenever a user sends an image or receives an image within a conversation, tapping on the image gives you options, out of which you can find the new search image option. Tapping it gives you an alert suggesting the image which you are about to search will be uploaded to Google. What this means is when a user clicks on the search button – it reverse searches the image across the web that can eventually guide you and give the user an idea whether the picture is a real or fake one. According to the report, this is achieved by WhatsApp by utilizing the official Google APIs to find the relevant images on the web, which is being asked to search. Further, the search results are shown by WhatsApp on your phone’s default browser.

As of know, as stated, this is still in the beta version of the WhatsApp, we can expect a full and finalized or refined feature in the upcoming updates of the WhatsApp application. This hopefully helps to hold a certain amount of fake images that are constantly being spread across the country, which tend to misguide the app’s massive user base. And, apart from this prominent feature, the latest beta also features new transgender flags and emojis as well and again, the rollout of these features is yet to be known. So, what do you think of this new feature from WhatsApp? Comment below and stay tuned to PhoneRadar for more updates.